


THE ECHO PROJECT - As of yet unnamed

by LocusFabrications



Category: Original Work
Genre: Aliens, Cybernetics, Gen, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Outer Space, Science Fiction & Fantasy
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-06-20
Updated: 2019-06-20
Packaged: 2020-05-15 01:43:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,963
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19285552
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LocusFabrications/pseuds/LocusFabrications
Summary: Just an original work that my mind is slowly starting to churn out. I've got bits and pieces. settings, lore, interactions and such, just things i'd like to try and weave together into a story that maybe goes somewhere. Let me know what you think. This will probably get updated when I feel like it so... stay tuned???





	THE ECHO PROJECT - As of yet unnamed

The faint, dull ringing in my ears serves as a tether that my other senses cling to as they crawl their way to the forefront of a slowly re-emerging consciousness, pushing past the screaming headache and the lingering agony of injuries I'm not yet fully aware of, leaving me painfully awake. Every Inch of my body either aches, tingles or itches. I feel warm, uncomfortably so, and incredibly heavy. It hurts to move. It hurts to _think_. What happened to me? Where am I, and why? _Who_ am I? That's quite a strange question to cross my mind, but as it stands, It's not the most urgent.  I try to open my eyes. I feel my eyelids drag against that clinging, itchy feeling as they slowly, heavily open, and I'm met with a dull, beige blur of obstruction. I feel my eyes watering at the sides, irritated, with that headache throbbing away, dull yet unrelenting, both inside and behind my eyes  
  
-Beep-  
  
I hear this faint sound, off to one side. -Beep- Different from the ringing, which seems to have dissipated now. -Beep- Constant, consistent beeping. -Beep- That I slowly begin to notice -Beep- Is keeping time -Beep-  With the throbbing -Beep- In my head and chest. -Beep-  
  
That's my heartbeat. I'm alive, Apparently.   
  
My body feels like eyeballs stuck to a lead weight. Heavy, Immobile. Useless. Just a thinking lump of meat that refuses to do as its told. I try to speak but as I do, my teeth, tongue, and indeed my entire throat all clamp down on something that's definitely not supposed to be in a throat. Hard, solid, unnatural. I gag a little, but at last, my otherwise lifeless body jolts and shudders at this thing in my throat but... I can breath. I'm not choking. My body settles. It seems I've been intubated. For a brief second it crosses my mind that I for some reason know what that means or what it involves, but the thought is brushed away by the sound of an opening door.  
  
"..-Patient Should be waking up soon. "   
  
A voice. Other people are here. P _atient?_ I hear footsteps entering the room. Muffled voices speak incoherent sentences down distant corridors. I count three people. A pair of footsteps paces about the room. Someone near the door, and the third set of footsteps make their way to my immediate right. At the side of what must be my bed, if I am indeed a patient. Must be visiting hours or something.  
  
"He's quite the mess, isn't he? all those bandages... No wonder he was in the med-pod of that ship." Comes the voice to my right. Soft. Female. Low, yet oddly comforting. There's clear concern in her tone.

"Indeed. Lacerations. Shrapnel. Direct blaster hits. Injuries consistent with combat most certainly. The other pilot seems to have been involved in the same situation." Soft, clear, well spoken, confident. That voice follows the steps moving around. He must be the doctor or surgeon or whatever individual involved in my being treated for injuries. Injuries that I have no memory of receiving.  
  
"Yeah, I don't like it. I hope they managed to take out whoever or whatever the hell was after them" Comes a third voice. Low, raspy, strange accent. There's an equal concern in his voice  
.  
"What makes you think there was someone after him?" Asks the doctor, curiously and rather offhandedly, as if he was more just curious about the answer rather than the fact it had happened.  
  
"Go down to the hangar and see for yourself. Thing's got chunks blown out of it, engines are shot to hell. ...and you saw what happened to the pilot. Poor bastard is dead, and worse off than med-pod boy here." Well, shit. There goes my chances of finding out what happened from someone involved.  
  
"uh... Doc? Question? The uh... the little metal implants on his arms? What's that about?" I can hear her, close to me, observing me. At one point even feel the breeze of her breath on my arm. I don't dare move. The more they talk, the more I find out, it seems. It would be rude to interrupt.  
  
  
"Indeed. About those. um... I'm going to start from the beginning from this but uh. I have quite considerable reason to believe that he's... well, he's one of you. He's an ECHO. There's no other explanation for it" Says the doctor. The professional tone in his voice is faltering, betraying a hint of nervousness.  
  
"...w-what?" They both reply, the confusion quite audible in their voices. What the hell is an ECHO?  
  
"Which... raises a whole load of questions for you I'm sure. At this point, I'd like answers just as much as you two." Says the doctor. His voice gives me a sinking feeling in my gut. A feeling that these three, whoever they are, at the very least know each other if not have quite a history together.  
  
"What sort of augs is he running?" The male asks after a bit of an awkward pause. He sounds curious, although it's hard to tell if it's based in caution or interest.  
  
"Your augmentations are cybernetic. Many of our patient's augmentations seem to be more genetic to a... well, to quite a startling degree. Given that he and the pilot appear to be twins, we've considered the possibility that he might be cloned. Which has unsettling implications in and of itself. Anyway. Our patient is an Immerian-Human hybrid. DNA profile suggests that the the father or.. if he's a clone, the male DNA donor was the human. The dangerous part comes after that - Bone density increases or replacements, with nano-molecular coatings, Nerve myelination with conductivity treatments,  Myofibrillar density treatments, occular implantation... It's all in his file and It's quite the list" ...What the actual fuck is this guy on about? Clones? Genetic augmentation?  
  
"So what's got you spooked that this guy is an ECHO?" the woman asks.   
  
"He's running every augmentation you two are running, short of your prosthetics. Subdermal plating, neural implants, sensory implants, chem-stim, digital interfaces. Nanite and respirocyte blood infusions. Everything. It's textbook Dog Soldier program stuff. He just doesn't have as much prosthetic hardware, as you two"  
  
"Dog Soldier program. Fucking hell.  Been a while since I've heard of that.  He really is one of us, then." says the male.  
  
"Indeed.  What's more is his Immerian side gives him a predisposition towards psionics, and he's got an array of augmentations to enhance that too. Now THAT I haven't seen. There's no textbook or augmentation program that involves the work that's been done to him. Psionic amplifiers and routing, sure but not to the degree that he has. Those little metal fitings on his arms are present in several places on his body and they test positive for rather strong psionic energy readouts. As for what they DO exactly, I guess we'll find out when he wakes."

"Great, so we've got a genetically engineered soldier who can see the future and move shit with his mind. You gonna tell us he poops gold next?" The male interrupts.

  
"That's not how it works, Psionics manifest differently with everyone. The Sergeant here for example..."

  
"-Can sense psionic energy in people, yeah." She finishes his sentence for him "But it's odd. I never got it on board the ship we hauled him off."

"He doesn't exactly "poop gold" but, given what we've seen with the pilot, and the ship's hardware, the leading consensus between the doctors and engineers is, to put it simply, they plug him into the ship.  
  
"Oh, you're joking, right?." I hear the male say, chuckling.  
  
"Oh no I'm being deadly serious. It seems to be some sort of neural and nervous system interface, pretty similar to what you'd find in, say, your cybernetic but it's different. Bigger. Much bigger. Here. look at this X-ray"  
  
I hear a quiet pause from the three of them.  
  
"That's his entire-ass spine. Yikes." I hear the male say.  
"The cables. The pilot was connected to cables and there were a lot of them coming out of his back." The lady adds.  
"Indeed. As for how it works... like i said, I'll guess we'll find out when he wakes"  
"Hopefully soon" The lady mutters. Almost to herself more than the others.  
  
Something touches my hand. I feel fingers gently grip my own, before the dull beige blur is sucked away from my senses.  
  
I feel like I've violently struck by a wall of solid darkness and I visibly tense at just how quick it seems to engulf me. I see fleeting glimpses of something that grow in clarity and intensity until I can make out shapes, colours, objects.  The glimpses are quick, fleeting, but incredibly vivid. ...A weapon. I'm holding a rifle, A torch on it's underside illuminates floating dust and debris, metal hallways and bulkheads. The silhouette of body strung up, cables suspending it from the ceiling by its spine as it dangles loosely. The starry expanse of space... a lone light in a dark medbay. An occupied medpod.  
  
"Holy SHIT I'm gonna be sick" I hear the female say as that beige blur returns almost as harshly as the darkness took me. But just as they'd crawled from unconsciousness, my senses slowly slip away. Her voice is the last thing I hear. My body tingles then fades from my awareness, as does everything else. Perception simply ceases, and it seems that again, I've passed out. From what, I'm not sure.  
  
The reawakening from the vision isn't as gradual as the first time around. My senses return in an instant, like a switch being flicked, like being slapped in the face with the responsibility of consciousness. But for a moment every thing lack's context and orientation. For a moment I'm not sure where I am or what's happening, and all I really know is that it just _is._ Hell I'm not even sure which way is up. All I can sense is my head being gently jostled from side to side.  The mask of beige gives way to shapes, other brighter and harsher colours that bring a burning sensation to my eyes. I squint away, and as I do I notice the strange new sensation of my teeth actually meshing correctly with each other. The breathing tube is gone. The air, despite being dry and sterile, is thick and refreshing now. My body gasps, sucking down lungfuls of oxygen it's been deprived of. Each gasp, each greedy inhalation seems to awaken me further.  
  
"Shit, he looks rough" I hear the voice speak from beside the bed. It's the male. Only this time, I'm able to turn and look at him. He's looking back at me.  First thing I notice is his eyes. His eyes are... well they're glowing slightly. They blink down at me, seemingly stuck in a permanent squint. The guy looks like he's personally just done with life. His brow sits low, and with that squint you'd think the lights were up too bright, and in my case I'd be forgiven for thinking as such, but apparently that's just how he looks. He's got short, messy blonde hair that comes down into a light scruff of facial hair. Under the scruff He's got a sharp jawline with equally sharp cheekbones, and altogether just gives the impression of a man who's hobbies include brooding mysteriously and scowling to himself. "Hey, take it easy buddy, try not to move too much" He reaches out, and helps me sit up a little.  
  
"Hey don't touch him or- ...oh." I glance over at the woman. She's sitting in a nearby chair with a blanket around her, looking somewhat pale, almost ill. She's different, Younger looking than the male  
  



End file.
